Jurgen Klopp has explained that he’s delighted with the work that has been completed so far during his side’s preparations for the new campaign and he ‘cannot complain’ about any aspect of the schedule so far.
Liverpool have already completed the first leg of their preseason tour with an intense trip to Asia which saw the Reds face Manchester United and Crystal Palace.
The Merseysiders are now training in Austria and are preparing for a clash with RB Salzburg tomorrow night following the 5-0 thrashing of RB Leipzig in Germany on Thursday.
“Very, very much. In pretty much all departments, on and off the pitch,” the former Borussia Dortmund boss told the club’s official website when asked about how pleased he is with the work his squad have done so far.
“It was exactly what we wanted after the intense period in Asia, which was good as well, but different obviously. Then the few days at the AXA we used quite well, coming here [we] did exactly what we wanted to do and so far, so good – cannot complain about anything.”
Klopp’s side came agonisingly close to pulling off a glorious quadruple last term.
After picking up both the Carabao Cup and FA Cup, the Reds finished as runners-up in both the Premier League and Champions League in what was still an impressive campaign.
The way in which the majority of the squad performed last season certainly deserved more silverware, but the German boss has explained what his side need to improve on further ahead of the new season.
“[There are] two things we try to improve here [and] both are from a pretty high level, to be honest. It’s the way we play, it’s what we are working at. Yes, there’s a lot of stuff to improve,” he added.
“I know result-wise… it’s crazy if you talk about results and say, ‘Well, what do we want? Do we want 105 or 110 points, or whatever.’
“No. It’s about how we react in specific moments; how we do the things we do more natural and from that point on how can we improve our decision-making in decisive moments, because even [though] we scored a lot of goals we were a lot of times in situations where – with slightly better overview with lesser hectic, or being in a rush, which is difficult in football especially – just using our structure in a better way, that’s what we are working on.
“On our defending, obviously, as well, because in all the good games we played I can’t remember a good game we played without an outstanding counter-pressing performance. Sometimes it’s not that obvious because we have so much possession, but always when we are really spot on in our high pressing, and counter-pressing, then we play a good football game.
“So, that’s important and, of course, then off the pitch we didn’t sign 20 new players, but we brought in three new boys. We have new young players in the squad as well and each group in the world can become closer with time – and that’s what we try to do as well. It worked out pretty well so far.”
Some of the clips that have been released by the club throughout the preseason schedule have been great to see.
It appears that Fabio Carvalho, Darwin Nunez and Calvin Ramsay have all settled at the club instantly and the morale in the squad is higher than ever.
As Klopp pointed out, it’s crazy to think that this group of players can improve further – we played every single game possible last season and gave everything right until the very end.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens this season, but we can’t wait for the new campaign to begin when we travel to face Fulham on August 6.